Sitting here staring at a blank page... which is part of what stopped me from blogging for the better part of the last few years.
Where to start?
What to say?
Do I post pictures or do I just post a simple introduction?
Do I talk about work & what I do for a living or do I talk about what I do when I'm not working?
If I talk about what I do when I am not working, do I talk about food or gardening or travel (or lack thereof), favourite things, things I hate?
The problem with having been a very active blogger for 5 or so years, then quitting writing for almost another 5 years is this:
Posts still get written in my head ... they just get filed in the "Blog File" in one of the filing cabinets that are in the giant warehouse in my brain. The one that stores everything memory-related.
So now that particular file is VERY FULL.
So full, in fact, that new cabinets were brought in, files sub-divided, re-organized, alphabetized then re-filed ... you get the picture?
So I have a possible thousands of things I could write for my "first blog entry".
I'm sure some people would say, "But why did you stop blogging, Blue Cat?"
The answer to that is complicated ... or incredibly simple.
Facebook.
"But it can't just be facebook, Cat."
No, it is not just facebook.
Part of it is because I'm an Anti-Trendy Person. ATP's like myself tend to shy away from anything that is all the rage. And when I had my first blog, there wasn't that many of them. A few huge super-blogs, and then some smaller blogging communities (LiveJournal, Xanga) with little sub-groups, the ability to click through from one comment to that person's blog... a great way to read other people with either similar interests, or that friend of a friend thing.
I was on a smaller community, and I had people I read, and made some really good friends through the wonders of the subscribe & comment buttons.
Friends that I see all the time on facebook now. I didn't have a super-blog, but I had probably 75 subscribers, and I really enjoyed reading about their lives, and having them weight in on my life.
And my life, at the time, was mostly okay. I was a 30-something married suburban mom... then life pretty much derailed.
My "real life" friends turned out to be a bunch of assholes, my marriage was falling apart, my dad was dying, I was falling into a pit of what eventually got defined as Fibromyalgia and my husband was spiralling into alcoholism.
I NEEDED that blog, just to get it out of my head, keep track of day to day life, life when husband was home, when it was good, when it was bad, life when he was out-of-town for work.
Those readers became very dear friends to me -- I think ultimately that they just might have saved my life.
I found that being able to write it as it was happening was not only cathartic, but it was a way for me to just. be. me. No masks, no happy faces when I felt like I was dying inside, no pretends, no cover-ups, just truth, which is often harder than people realize -- we ALL have our public selves, the face we show the world, but there is so. much. more. beneath the surface.
Then facebook came along, and some of those readers (probably 15 or so) and I got to friend each other there, and facebook is a really good way of keeping up with people, staying in touch, being real friends with our real names involved, not just usernames, and it was so easy to message back & forth, post on their walls, play scrabble.
And a weird thing happened at that same time ... the internet blog world just, exploded. Suddenly everyone had a dot-com blog. Everyone was trying to make a super-blog. Everyone and their dogs and cats and kids and hobbies had a blog. And a large number of those blogs looked a lot alike, like something off Martha Stewart, the pastel colours, with cute "quippy" posts, a lot of them posting in the same "voice" or tone ... and the little blog communities started to die off.
There seemed to be a lot of competition for the Bestest Mommy type of blogs, competition for who could get the most free stuff by blogging about it, who could lure readers and comments & shares by running "contests" and giveaways (I put contests in quotes because I met a super-blogger at my daughter's school who filled me in that it was NEVER a draw, she just picked people she knew to "win").
Ugh.
The blogging community that I was on changed... more sock-puppet blogs spewing hate or Ana or Mia crap. My friends largely stopped posting, whether it was just a shift or it was that they made their own real blogs, changed everything. And I missed being able to easily read them on one page, or a few tabs, whatever. My own life changed VERY radically, and my available time just went *poof* and I had none ... it was hard to even be on facebook for more than a half-hour in the morning, it was a pain in the ass to try to upload photos from the camera then to photobucket then to the blog, my premium membership expired, so the ability to post "protected" so that only my subscribers would see the posts expired with it.
"So what changed now, Cat? Why start a new blog?"
Because I have always been a journaler, paper journals for most of my life except for those blog years; actually even during those years I still had a paper journal. I have always loved to write, fiction, non-fiction, editorial-style things.
Because I have REALLY missed being able to sit down and learn new things and learn about other people, make acquaintances through blogs. See what the world is up to these days, real people.
Because it's so much easier now to upload pictures from the camera (a whopping 14 seconds for 70 pictures this morning, YAY!).
Because I have found myself reading a LOT of blogs lately, and discovered that it's changing yet again -- people being more real, less trying-too-hard, people just being people, and putting up some really good, honest posts and photos. There are a lot of really great blogs out there, just real conversation, real things.
And I have found in the last 2 years or so that with the absence of a blog, I write a lot at facebook. I get messages sometimes from people, both those I know in real life and those I've met through other friends (both online or real life) saying that they get excited to see when I have written something, that they always enjoy my posts.
So maybe, just maybe, I have a thing or two to teach others. There is always another side of the coin, the other hand, the grass on the other side of the fence, and maybe my side of the penny is a different shade of copper than yours is.
"But, what type of blog is this? Is it a Gardening Blog? A Crocheting Blog? A Mommy Blog? What's with the Cat in the name, are you a Crazy Cat Lady?"
This isn't a Subject Blog... it's probably going to be all over the map when it comes to topics. If I am cooking that day, and I want to share it, that will be the post of the day (or week or month, sometimes I have less time than other times). I might ask for advice or talk about something that is bothering me... I might post just photos or I might just post text. I'll very likely be posting about my progress on certain things that I need to improve upon in my life (house, yard, garden, whatever) that aren't going to be all sunshine, roses & rainbows. But life isn't always pretty, you know?
If you think you recognize yourself in my words, I am probably NOT talking about you, haha. We ALL make mistakes in our lives, nobody's perfect so don't worry about it -- I am just as likely to discuss something stupid that I have done as I am to talk about something stupid that you have done.
And no, I'm not a Crazy Cat Lady... ;)
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